Monday 24 April 2017

Final Week for Unstampabelles April Challenge


Yes, it is Spring in the Northern hemisphere but it is still Autumn here; we have had a great Indian Summer but the tide has turned and Autumn has arrived. 

Greg Faull took this photo last week up along the edges of the Derwent river, some 20kl from me
A misty quiet morning - love his reflections and the bush
An old jetty near New Norfolk


I made a card for the DT  - however, I must say I got an idea from Pinterest and then altered it to suit my dies and I had it al lsorted in my mind.

It was going to look fantastic. 
This is what came about...........


Layers of dies with  colour peeking through underneath


Sparkly bird feather's and dew on the leaves.....


Love my new Polly bird dies - I have four!


The foliage springing out of the layers is supposed to be symbolic but if one has to explain, the execution of the idea is pretty stuffed.....


Anyway, I have added it here but I have a feeling it may be pulled apart and redone soon...

It has lost something in translation. 

You can o better - and enter it over at Unstampabelles - please, no stamps. 

Sunday 23 April 2017

Using Sue Wilson dies........

WARNING: Photo heavy - long post

A few weeks ago, Sue Wilson (from Creative Expressions, USA) came to Tasmania and did a weekend workshop for a small business at Spreyton called Bev's Cross Crafts.



I was booked in to go to this - had paid my money, booked accommodation for three nights and organised the husband. It was going to be awesome. Then he got sick and was hospitalised.....we waited a week; he was still there - eventually I cancelled the trip and organised for Bev to send me the kits after the weekend. She was very kind and agreed to do this and to die cut and add bits that I might not have before sending them to me. As this was three days beforehand I was very grateful.

Last week the kits all arrived - and as promised, Bev had precut and glittered and polished, with papers pierced and embossed and each kit was sent with a set of information sheets. I had to watch one Youtube demo and I was able to make all the cards.

One thing I had not realised is how big the dies are and how big Sue Wilson makes her cards. Also I am used to the folded card, so seeing a card that is just one sheet with many layers was a bit of a shock! I did cut down two of the kits to fit cards but in the end I just went with the size - they will be special cards!

Over two days, I have made these cards up and so I will now share them with you - remember, they're not my design; I did not die cut anything or indeed cut anything - all I did was put them together and add a little glue!


CARD 1

I did cut this down.....
It uses the Cascading Butterfly die and some Pixie Powder's
I was supposed to add more water to these but chose not to as the effect under the ascetate of the powders already looked so pretty I left them.....(that's my story, anyway: nothing to do with the fact that I realised I had not re-activated them until much later...)


Sue's card is a square (about 7" square I think) but I cut mine down to a commercial big square of 5" x 5" so had to redo the piercing and cut the sentiment up. I ran a black marker pen around the edge of these before adding them. Mine has a ribbon of card across the page but Sue's design was a full page with the butterflies in the middle. 


You can see the layering detail here - the butterflies were die cut and then die cut again - once in white and then in black.


Despite not being activated the pixie dust under the acetate looks good


Love the sentiment stamp too


CARD 2

I cut this one down too and made a card blank for it from an A4 folded in half and trimmed a bit on one side......that's how big it is.


The die set is called Indian Ocean - Mauritius


It looks like fancy window shutters -can you see the second set of black underneath the white? 


The black panel had been embossed and had gold gilding polish on it


More detail


Note the pearl strips either side


This is the completed card

CARD 3
No more adjusting - I just did what I was told


Mostly - I did add some blue glue and gold rusty paint..........


It is a stunner - the porthole opens!
The die set is called Porthole - of course


Nifty little catch...the die set has all the components 


The scene inside more clearly......


The 'ahoy' is double cut and glued together


CARD 4

Candy Machine Die


This has so many layers, two of them a stiff foam with the centre cut out.
There is silver behind the red machine, under the white
The round treat cup is available as well
Bev even supplied the sweets......


I used an SU embossing folder on the front card to give it more texture


Behind the sweets is a cute die cut sentiment Sweets for the Sweet - as the sweets empty out it shows more clearly


This mechanism works!
It is made of card and a wooded handle


Here the wooden handle is upright and closed again 


I chose to put my sentiment flags this way


CARD 5

All glittery and has gilding flakes on the background
I just built this one up - layer on layer (6 in all)
The main dies are Atlantic Ocean Background and Jessica


The use of double sided jac paper for the gilding flakes and the glitter is genius. 


pretty flower is six added together - 2 sets of three (Chrysanthemum)


See the gilding flakes on the back of the sticky sheet shinning through??


On the front of the sticky sheet is glitter - Ice Snow - you can see it glittering!


A very pretty BIG card

CARD 6


Again -  lots of layers
Pacific Ocean Dies Fiji and Tahiti


The embossed card was white but had been gilded with Platinum Gilding Polish


Pierced borders again


Lots and lots of borders (8 in total before the front piece)


Now I have to work out my potential shopping list........

Thanks Bev - I enjoyed putting the kits together very much - nearly made up for missing the weekend. 





Saturday 22 April 2017

Dragonflies and Hilde

She is doing it again! 

Our wonderful leader over at Crafting with Dragonflies LOVES her Dragonflies - both the DT AND the real thing! So she has asked us to create a card with one (or more) on it for this current challenge.


This one is Scottish - you can hear it saying Oich Eye!

Mine is Australian I think


I used a piece of the DS papers from Stampin' Up called Inside the Lines, which came free during Sale-A-Bration. I chose the one with a dragonfly of course.


I coloured in the DSP using my Copics and mounted it onto some Real Red card


The orange stamens are sparkly but difficult to see

(a tip: to remove the yellow powder from these stamens off clothes, don't brush at it - grab some sticky tape and wrap it around your fingers and sort-of mop up the little pieces. No staining)


This sentiment seems like Hilde to me - she has a loving family and she is always looking after them as well as her DT.


Mounted onto a square white card blank, this can go through the post with ease. 

Enjoy your week 

Make sure you make a card using a Dragonfly image somewhere 
and enter it in our current challenge at 


You can find dragonflies around the Day of Fires area in N E Tasmania


Another beautiful autumn morning at the Bay of Fires

pic: www.instagram.com/jennicole15



Sunday 16 April 2017

A little bit of Easter......

I hope you are all enjoying your Easter Break and staying warm/cool/dry and safe while doing so.


Happy Easter from Wineglass Bay thanks to Ella Dargan
www.instagram.com/ella_dargan

Looking south - but the sky down here as it write this is overcast and a bit wintry.
Still, we enjoyed a lovely lunch with friends for Easter Sunday and are now home warm and snug 
ready to watch Dr Who later this evening.

I made a couple of Easter cards 
All using SU card, stamps and stuff unless stated


Dylusions spray and Ranger black ink



WMS sentiment and Copics colouring


(peg is just there to keep card closed for photo)

That's it - a bit slack in the creative side of things lately!

Happy Easter to all.

Cheers, Susan